Timberdoodle

Timberdoodle is the homeschool industry's most ambitious curator, a family-owned retailer that assembles complete grade-level kits by selecting curriculum titles, manipulatives, hands-on materials, and thinking-skills resources from across the publishing landscape and packaging them into a single box. Families pay a premium for the curation; the question is whether the curation is worth it.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Eclectic, curated multi-publisher kits with hands-on emphasis
Worldview	Christian-ecumenical (soft-Christian framing; pulls from both Christian and secular publishers)
Grades	PreK-12
Formats	Hands-on kit + print; digital components in some component selections
Cost tier	Premium
Parent intensity	3
ESA-common	Varies (some state marketplaces stock individual kit components rather than full kits)
Accredited	No (retailer, not a school)
Established	1985, Shelton, Washington
Website	timberdoodle.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Strong because the curated components are strong; rigor depends on which kit
Ease of teaching	3	Multi-publisher coordination, the parent integrates programs with different teaching styles
Content quality	4	The selections themselves are well-vetted; logic and thinking-skills are the standout strengths
Flexibility	5	Kits can be modified; à la carte purchase available; broad retail catalog
Value for money	3	Pricing roughly matches buying components separately; pay for curation
Worldview scope	4	Soft-Christian framing; selections cross worldview lines; usable across most homeschool families
Visual/design	4	High-quality physical materials; the box-arrives experience is the company's core delight
Support resources	4	Knowledgeable customer service; warm, informative tone

Who the publisher is

Timberdoodle was founded in 1985 by Dan and Deb Deffinbaugh in Shelton, Washington, as a small mail-order operation selling thinking-skills materials, logic puzzles, and educational manipulatives to homeschool families who couldn't easily find such materials in mainstream curriculum catalogs. The Deffinbaughs were homeschool parents themselves; the company emerged from the practical problem that no single publisher made everything they wanted to use. By the early 1990s Timberdoodle had grown into a broader retailer; by the 2000s it had begun assembling its signature complete-curriculum kits, packaging selections by grade.

The company remains family-owned and family-operated, with two generations of the Deffinbaugh family now involved per the Our Story page. It is not publicly traded, has never been acquired by a larger curriculum publisher, and operates from the same Washington State warehouse it has used for most of its history. The scale is modest by industry standards. Timberdoodle is not Sonlight or Abeka in revenue terms, but the company's reach into the gifted, hands-on, special-needs-friendly, and thinking-skills segments of the market is disproportionate to its size.

Timberdoodle's worldview is best described as soft-Christian and ecumenical. The company is run by Christians, the statement of faith is broadly evangelical, and selected components in the kits include Christian publishers (Apologia is a frequent science choice; some history selections come from Notgrass or similar). But the kits also include secular components routinely. Math-U-See, Singapore Math, classic logic and thinking-skills books, building toys, and hands-on science materials with no faith content. Families choosing Timberdoodle generally land somewhere on the spectrum from "Christian and comfortable with secular components in the mix" to "secular and comfortable with light Christian framing in the catalog."

The core pedagogy

Timberdoodle does not have a pedagogy in the way that Abeka or Sonlight has a pedagogy. What Timberdoodle has is a curation philosophy: hands-on learning, thinking-skills development, age-appropriate variety, and resistance to the all-textbook approach. The company's editorial position is that children learn best through a mix of books, manipulatives, games, puzzles, and project work, and that no single publisher gets all of those pieces right. The kits are the practical execution of that position.

A typical grade-level Complete Curriculum Kit at, say, second grade arrives as a single large box containing roughly twenty to thirty components: a math curriculum (recent kits have used Math-U-See or Singapore Math), a language arts curriculum (often Spelling You See or similar), a science kit with experiment materials, a history or geography component, several thinking-skills books (Logic Safari, Mind Benders, Building Thinking Skills), educational games and puzzles, a hands-on engineering or building toy, and a recommended reading list with several books included. Specific publishers cycle year-to-year as Timberdoodle updates selections.

The signature mechanics of the Timberdoodle approach are three. First, multi-publisher curation, the kit deliberately mixes vendors rather than locking the family into one publisher's universe. Second, physical manipulatives and games are central, not supplemental, a Timberdoodle kit treats logic puzzles and engineering toys as core curriculum, not enrichment. Third, the kits are scheduled but not scripted. Timberdoodle provides a usage guide explaining how the components fit together but does not produce a daily lesson plan; the parent integrates the components into the family's rhythm.

A day in the life

A second-grader using a full Timberdoodle Complete Curriculum Kit starts the morning around 8:30 with handwriting and a short Bible reading (15 minutes), then math from the kit's selected math curriculum (30 minutes, typically a Math-U-See or Singapore lesson with manipulatives). Language arts follows (30 minutes, spelling, copywork, or a short reading-and-discussion exercise from the kit's LA component). After a snack break, the student spends 20-30 minutes on thinking-skills work, usually a session with one of the logic books or a puzzle from the kit's puzzle set. After lunch, history or science (alternating days, ~30 minutes), and a project session with the kit's hands-on materials (engineering toy, science experiment, or art project, ~30-45 minutes). Total instructional time: about three hours, with the project block carrying significant student-led time.

The parent role is moderate. Each curriculum component within the kit has its own teacher's guide and pacing pattern, and the parent must integrate across them. Timberdoodle's overall scheduling guide helps, but the parent is genuinely coordinating four to six different publishers' work into a coherent week. A first-time homeschool parent with no curriculum background can run a Timberdoodle kit, but the learning curve is real for the first month or two.

What they do exceptionally well

Thinking skills and logic. Timberdoodle's curation in this category is the best-known of any homeschool retailer's. The logic and thinking-skills selections. Mind Benders, Building Thinking Skills, Logic Safari, Lollipop Logic, Critical Thinking Co. titles, are deeply vetted, sequenced across grade bands, and treated as core rather than supplemental. Families who specifically want their children to develop reasoning skills as a priority find Timberdoodle's curation hard to match elsewhere.

Hands-on and special-needs-friendly selection. The kits are unusually rich in physical materials, manipulatives, building toys, science kits, puzzles, and the curation pays explicit attention to families with kinesthetic learners, students with attention regulation challenges, and special-needs households. Timberdoodle's product reviews and customer service consistently engage with how a particular toy or curriculum works for non-typical learners.

The unboxing experience and customer service. Families consistently report the kit-arrival experience as one of the best in homeschool publishing, a single large box containing a real curriculum, professionally packaged, with a usage guide that respects the parent's intelligence. Customer service is direct, knowledgeable, and warm in a way that is rare in larger publisher interactions; the Deffinbaugh family identity carries through.

What they do poorly

Premium pricing. Timberdoodle's curation has a real cost, and the kits are not cheap. Per the kit pricing page, full Complete Curriculum Kits run approximately $700-$1,200 per grade level as of April 2026. A family that buys the same individual components à la carte from each publisher pays roughly the same. Timberdoodle's pricing margin is in the curation and packaging, not in markup on components, but families on tight budgets will find the up-front cost steep relative to a single-publisher program at the same grade level.

Multi-publisher coordination load. The flip side of curation across vendors is that the parent inherits the coordination work. Each component has its own teacher's guide, its own pacing, its own quirks. Families who want a single coherent voice across the school day, the Abeka or Sonlight model, will find Timberdoodle's mixed-vendor structure more demanding to teach. The kit ships as one box; the school week does not feel like one program.

Year-to-year curation changes. Timberdoodle updates kit contents annually as it evaluates new publishers and retires others. This is editorially the right thing to do, but it means a family that loved last year's second-grade kit cannot count on next year's third-grade kit feeling like a sequel. Families committed to multi-year continuity sometimes find the rotation frustrating.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Timberdoodle if: you want a curated complete kit without researching every publisher separately; you value hands-on, thinking-skills, and game-based learning as core rather than supplemental; you have a kinesthetic, gifted, or special-needs learner who benefits from variety; you are a new homeschool parent who needs a credible default; you want to give homeschool grandparents a clean way to gift "a year of school."

• Skip Timberdoodle if: budget is the binding constraint; you prefer single-publisher coherence (Abeka, Sonlight, Memoria Press); you want online or video-delivered instruction (Timberdoodle is print- and physical-materials-heavy); you are strictly secular and uncomfortable with any Christian framing in the catalog or selections; you want a fully scripted daily lesson plan.

Cost honest assessment

Per Timberdoodle's product pages, a full Complete Curriculum Kit for second grade runs approximately $850-$1,050 as of April 2026; Tiny Thinkers (preschool) kits run $200-$400; high school kits run $900-$1,300. Partial kits (math-only, language-only) run $200-$500 depending on selections.

By comparison, a complete Sonlight Core kit at second grade runs $700-$1,100 per Sonlight's pricing page in April 2026; Abeka's parent kit at the same grade runs $700-$850; The Good and the Beautiful's free downloadable LA plus paid math and science runs $200-$400. Timberdoodle sits at the upper end of homeschool kit pricing, comparable to Sonlight and Abeka, substantially more than budget-priced single-publisher options, but the curation argument is that families would spend the same money assembling equivalent quality from multiple vendors themselves, plus the time cost of selection.

A realistic all-in family budget for two elementary students running Timberdoodle kits is $1,800-$2,500 annually.

ESA eligibility notes

Timberdoodle's ESA situation is more complex than a single-publisher review can summarize cleanly. State ESA marketplaces typically approve individual curriculum vendors rather than retailers, so a family using ESA funds may be able to purchase the underlying components of a Timberdoodle kit (Math-U-See, Apologia, etc.) through the marketplace separately but not the curated Timberdoodle kit as a single SKU. Some state marketplaces, including Florida's Step Up For Students MyScholarShop, have begun listing Timberdoodle as an approved vendor in recent years; families should verify current status within their specific state program. Timberdoodle's own ESA page lists current marketplace approvals.

Alternatives

• Sonlight, a family would choose Sonlight over Timberdoodle for literature-based, single-publisher coherence with a stronger reading-and-discussion model and less hands-on emphasis.
• BookShark, a family would choose BookShark over Timberdoodle for the secular version of Sonlight's literature-based approach; BookShark is less hands-on but more cohesive in voice.
• Build Your Library, a family would choose Build Your Library over Timberdoodle for a budget-friendly secular literature-based approach with more parent-direction and less reliance on physical components.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed Timberdoodle's Our Story page, the Complete Curriculum Kit collection including kit pages for grades 2, 5, 8, and 11, sample usage guides downloadable from the publisher site, and the thinking skills category page. We cross-referenced with Cathy Duffy's published Timberdoodle reviews, archived homeschool convention coverage, and ESA marketplace listings for Timberdoodle in Arizona, Florida, and Utah. Prices verified at timberdoodle.com in April 2026.